Ipod Takes Japan by Storm Page 1 of 2
iPod Takes Japan by Storm Page 1 of 2 Close Window FEBRUARY 24, 2006 TECHNOLOGY By Ian Rowley iPod Takes Japan by Storm The Godzilla of digital-musical players far outsells rivals from local consumer-electronics giants like Sony. After all, it's so kawaii (cute) Spend any time hanging around Tokyo's bustling Shibuya retail and fashion conclave, and you will doubtless see electronic shops galore hawking MP3 players such as Sony's (SNE ) Walkman, Toshiba's Gigabeat, and the Panasonic D-Snap brand. Yet a determined young couple on hand recently -- Megumi Mizuno, 22, and Takaaki Tokuyoshi, 17 -- bypassed them all, making a straight shot to the Apple (AAPL ) outlet. Why? They've been infected by the near-global iPod obsession. "The iPod design is cool," says Mizuno, a college student majoring in psychology, who wants a replacement for her aging mini-disk player. Tokuyoshi, meanwhile, is looking for a step up from his DoCoMo (DCM ) mobile phone, which he currently uses to listen to music. "iPod's sound quality is better, and the cell-phone battery doesn't last long enough to enjoy listening to music," he says. "The prices are reasonable, too." The iPod nano, with 4 gigabytes of memory, retails for about $230 in Japan. It seems iPod mania is alive and well in Japan -- one of the most competitive consumer-electronics markets on the planet. Despite an array of well-entrenched Japanese rivals, such as Sony and Matsushita (MC ), the iPod had cornered 51.3% of the digital-music player market as of the end of 2005, up from about 32% in 2004, according to research firm BCN.
[Show full text]